Hi Guys

For all of you out there with FireDTV or FloppyDTV Satellite units, Digital-Everywhere have MCE drivers that work with Sky (28.2) in the UK.

Driver is available on the digital-everywhere site under Support -> Beta Drivers.

I have been running with them for 2 weeks without any issues, look forward to hearing others comments.

Are you saying that I can plug a Sky viewing card into this machine and it will allow me to view Sky channels on my MCE machine, and work under the EPG etc.?  Including encrypted channels?

Cheers,
Andy

 

Yes you can view any channel your sky subscription allows.

You will require the correct CAM, but you can find that info on the Digital-Everywhere support forums.

www.firedtv.com/support -> General -> Announcements

 

 

Sorry for being really slow here but is this specific to the FireDTV hardware or is this an app that will enable DVB-S support in MCE for other hardware too?

cheers,
dan

Hi Dan

These drivers are specific to the FireDTV/FloppyDTV hardware products.

 

Regards

Just wanted to add that this hardware does exactly what it says on the tin - I've now got my satellite cable plugged into the back of the Media Center, and the Sky viewing card plugged into the front. Works great.

Cheers,
Andrew

ok, hang on here.   sky and directv are teh same damn thing technology wise.   I am not familar with this stuff at all, someone give me a fast primer on exactly what I need to try this in the US with directv.

Assuming that DirecTV supports the DVB-S standard, then the components are as follows:

1. A DVB-S receiver card for your PC with a Common Interface (CI) slot.  The CI slot looks a lot like a PCMCIA slot. 

2. Software for the receiver card that makes it look like a DVB-T card to MCE.

3. A Common Access Module (CAM).  The CAM slots into the CI slot, and provides the interface between the viewing card and the receiver card.

4. Firmware for the CAM that supports the decryption method used by DirecTV.

5. A valid viewing card for DirecTV.

Plug the DVB-S receiver card into the PC, install the software, connect the sat cable to the back of the PC, put the viewing card into the CAM, put the CAM into the CI slot, and start up Media Center.  Configure the card, and scan for channels.

The difficult bit is that the EPG and the card type don't match up, so you need to change the headend value in the registry to match the correct EPG and manually match up the listings to the channel (at least that's what I've had to do).

Cheers,
Andrew

directv and skyplus match exactly, I've used skyplus stbs on directv with no issues, I just have to activate it with the american brand/model of the unit so they don't say thats not compatible.  this should work.  I don't mind paying and finding out its not an option.  Also going to be interesting because I'm going to have to setup mce like its in the uk to get the dvb-s support to kick in.

being that dvb-s is not a common tuner type around here, can you recommend a tuner to try this with?

I've only got experience with FireDTV's DVB-S tuner - I would try that one - have a look at the website http://www.firedtv.com/ - it would need to be imported from the UK though.

Cheers,
Andrew

hi Accident

Send a message to the Firedtv Team : http://www.firedtv.com/Information/ContactUs/tabid/318/Default.aspx , I know they are looking for testers for the States and South Africa.

Regards

 

I dropped them a note a few days ago about if they would sell and ship to a US customer and how much more for shipping and exactly what parts I would need if I was a sky plus user to do this.  I dropped them another note just now though.

I'm 99% sure this will work.  the tricky part is going to be dvb-t is not a US tv option so its going to take some country changes and reg edits to get everything working but I can just load up as a uk user on a test machine to see if it finds and works then deal with getting the rest of the us stuff working again.  not a big deal for me.

D* uses both DSS and DVB-S2 (IIRC).  DVB-S2 is used for MPEG-4 locals at this point.  DSS is still used for MPEG-2 content (everything but MPEG-4 local channels at this point).

If it works, you would only be able to pick up MPEG-4 locals.  Which IMHO look like a** in comparision to OTA broadcasts.  My opinion, don't bother and just stick with an OTA tuner.

dss is just dvb-s with a prorietary audio format.  i'm not going to see any mpeg4 channels for another year, nyc is last on the list.  its the same format that sky+ uses and I don't mind finding out it doesn't work.  I like projects and a neighbor with a 13 foot bud can see the sky sat so we can play with that also :)

IIRC there are some format differences in the transport stream that make it differ from the DVB standard.